5 more themes for California wine

Wines like Los Pilares are help making the case for local wine up and down the state. (Photo: The Chronicle)

Each July, to mark Independence Day, I compile a list of five things to watch for in California wine through the coming year. July 4 came on an odd schedule this year (Wednesday, really?) but let’s keep the tradition going.

If you’re curious, here are my lists from 2010 and 2011. Many of the topics have come, or are coming, to fruition. So, onward.

My latest five items from the great crystal ball at 5th and Mission are below. I’ll be traveling for a couple weeks. See you when I get back.

1. Local wine, for real. OK, this is a twist on an item from 2010. But in two years there have been big strides in finding real, artisanal wines made nearby — that restaurants in particular can work with. This is crucial because so much inexpensive California wine is made industrially and destined for bargain shelves. To have local everynight table wines from small producers is essential, doubly so as the farm-to-table movement matures to the point of obviousness, because there is a generation of wine drinkers who either will seek out legitimate artisanship (versus Domino’s artisanship) or else drink imports. Even New York has caught on, which is why more local bottles than ever from Long Island and the Finger Lakes are appearing on Manhattan wine lists. California has no excuse.

Auspiciously, this push toward honest local wines has spread beyond the North Coast. Look no farther than the early success of the Los Pilares label, made using San Diego County fruit (Grenache and Carignane grapes), fermented from whole berries without added yeasts or acid, aged without oak, and making a big splash in San Diego itself.

2. Screwcaps. They have quietly proliferated across far more white wines than even three years ago, to the point that generally abhorrent technical corks are mostly used only in wines scrambling to make themselves look fancier than their $6 price might indicate. This is a huge win for everyone. Next step: screwcaps for those $6 wonders. It’s not 1956 anymore.

3. Heritage vines. California is in the midst of a burgeoning vine deficit. After years of excess inventory, wineries are pushing up production again — just as there’s a dip in the boom-bust cycle of vineyard plantings. Vine nurseries are headed for shortages. Given the year-long lead time, they simply can’t keep up with the sudden burst in demand.

That’s not good news for large-scale vineyards. But small farmers are more likely than ever to skip the usual roster of nursery-approved vine clones and tap California’s own vine heritage — not just for clone-focused grapes like Pinot Noir but even with Cabernet and Merlot. These bursts of interest in field vine propagation come now and again; the 1980s boom in Chardonnay brought a benevolent spread (and genetic adaptation) of California’s vine diversity. Something similar is likely to happen again — especially because winemakers are increasingly pleased by the results from fruit off heritage selecitons like Mt. Eden, Swan and Martini, to use Pinot as an example.

Leaving aside the usual complaints about productivity and the spread of vine diseases (which, let’s note, happens with both unofficial cuttings and nursery selections), there is plenty to appreciate about the use of heritage California material. Much as heirloom seeds have revived produce like tomatoes and squash, heritage vines stand to make wine grapes all the more interesting. And not just here: The current work in Burgundy to preserve that region’s adapted vines may be one of the most important wine projects in the Old World.

4. Let experimentation thrive. The industry has in recent years fallen into a habit of jumping from one would-be hit variety to the next, grafting over vines barely in time to capture a fad. That has come at the cost of what once was a willingness to tinker, in a day when no one was quite as sure what California grew best.

Luckily, that willingness to tinker is coming back — including among UC Davis and its researchers. If 5 percent of the energy being used to graft in new Muscat and Malbec vines went into looking not even for the next great thing, just the next OK thing, the state’s vintners would have a lot more arrows in their quiver, and we’d have even more interesting wine to drink.

5. Zinfandel’s next step. The past few years have witnessed a few auspicious twists for California’s would-be native grape, from the unveiling of more restrained examples like Dashe’s L’Enfant Terrible and Broc Cellars’ Vine Starr, to the improbable revival of White Zinfandel, as a serious rosé, by none other than Turley Wine Cellars.

Why does this matter? Because Zin is the last boundary for many serious wine lovers, their last point of derision and division. To have a growing set of interpretations for Zin, including wines that speak to what we’ll call a nerdier sensibility, distances Zin away from the divisiveness of recent years and helps to put it back into focus just as California needs to draw on its strengths. (See No. 2, above.) A wine like the Turley White Zin might seem like a hipper-than-thou wink, but the truth is that it helps to bring an important grape back into the conversation among those who had spurned it.